


Home Again

by kalirush



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Al is in a Bad Place, Angst, Community: fmagiftexchange, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al should be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).



> Written for ELD for fmagiftexchange on LJ, because she said she wanted some Al. It was originally from my musing "Now I sort of want to write a story about Al having PTSD after everything- which, years of sensory deprivation and all that fighting and struggle and nearly dying and everything... Clap alchemy+PTSD has got to be a bad combination."

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. 

Two months home- _home_ in the only sense that means anything anymore- and he feels like he’s crawling out of his skin. He’s snapped at Ed and Winry both enough that they’re skirting around him now, and that just makes him feel worse. 

He should be happy, is the worst part. He remembers the first few weeks after Ed brought him back from the gate, and he was so _happy_. It didn’t matter how much everything hurt, or how overwhelming it was, or how weak he was. He was so glad to be alive, to be real again. He was so glad that Brother had his right arm back, and that he’d lived, and no one had had to use a philosopher’s stone or die or anything. 

Now, he dreams about emptiness and Ed’s gate, and he wakes up with his body flooded with adrenaline and hormones and sweat, gasping and shaking and too overwhelmed to scream. No one comes for him, because no one knows what’s happening, and it takes several small forevers before he can get himself calm enough to breathe right. He’s not used to his body anymore. He could feel fear in the armor, but not this kind of fear, not fear rooted in the too-fast pumping of his heart and the tightening of his chest and the chemicals racing through his bloodstream.

Most of the time, he’s fine, he tries to remind himself. A little short-tempered, maybe, but fine. He does his chores, and runs little errands for Granny, and keeps Winry company. Granny looks at him sometimes, thoughtfully, and he wonders if she knows.

He keeps his light on all night, because the shadows remind him of Pride. He feels stupid about it, but he can’t stand the way the homunculus’s voice echoes in his memory when he’s in the dark. He wonders sometimes whether he’d’ve been brave enough to trap himself in the dome with that monster if he’d had all these messy, chemical feelings at the time.

One morning, he wakes to the sound of screaming. It takes him a long time to realize that he’s clapping, that he’s already spinning into a kick, that his still-emaciated body is slamming into his big brother’s chest. His body is too weak to do much damage still. His alchemy isn’t. One whole side of the house is twisted into spikes. They’re lucky that no one was hurt. It was a near thing.

He thinks that it’s not fair that Ed lost his alchemy, and Al’s the one who has enough of it to attack the people he loves. 

Except that Ed didn’t lose his alchemy. He traded it for Al’s life. Al never thinks about that, because it makes all those hormones flood into his brain- the ones that start the tears and the crying and his hands shaking and his stomach hurting. 

He never quite wishes that Ed hadn’t brought him back. 

Not quite.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is a low point for Al. I sort of hate writing this sort of thing, because my experience- my personal experience- of mental illness is that people can get help and they can get better. So. Er. Try not to be too depressed by me.


End file.
